


A Glass Full of Stars

by librariansheart



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Grief, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 08:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11354025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librariansheart/pseuds/librariansheart
Summary: Commander Iverson reflects on the Kerberos team in the aftermath of their disappearance.





	A Glass Full of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> The team members are only mentioned in passing.

Michael Iverson sits heavily in his chair and rubs his hands hard over his face. His joints ache today. There must be a storm coming. He snorts humorlessly. After a bungle like this? Damn right there’s a storm coming.

If you can call it a bungle.

Rubbing his eyes, he pulls up the files for thirtieth time, hoping that this time maybe there will be an explanation in this mess. But no, there’s still nothing. Just cryptic voice recordings of sudden alarm, half a yell, and then static for a few minutes until the audio feed goes dead. The shuttle’s fine – unharmed, unmoved, no seismic activity registering – but his men are just… gone. No radio signal, no life signs within range, nothing. The camera on the vehicle they’d taken out to the ice sample site is damaged somehow. Grit in the lens, they say. High winds, maybe.

The document tab blinks, accusatory, from its place on his toolbar. The notification letters for the next of kin. He always hates doing them, but these are worse. What is he supposed to say? The brass are on his tail day and night to figure out what happened out there; over 7.5 billion kilometers out there in the void and they want him to magically know what went wrong. What is he, a psychic? They’ve forbidden him to give any details, or even let the families know that they landed properly. Pilot error. Yeah right.

Everybody knows Shirogane was the best pilot in his class. That’s why he was chosen for this mission in the first place. He’d never crash a ship. Even in his total power failure simulations he always managed to find a way to coast her in. Skip her off the atmosphere and put her into a slow-decay orbit till they could get power back or something. Pilot error. Please.

But that’s what they’ve been putting in all the public briefings, or will be. They’re going on air on Wednesday. He’s got five days to get these letters written and delivered.

He sighs, feeling ninety instead of his proper sixty-five. He hates this. Not just the letter writing, not just the hand-wringing, whining, cringing idiocy, not just the blustering idiots, but the helplessness. The feeling he should have been able to do something. He should know something by now.

The clock reads 02:23. He unlocks his secure filing cabinet and pulls a small bottle of whiskey out of it, splashing some into a paper cup and downing it in one. He refills the glass and sets the bottle on his desk. Three of his best men.

He and Sam Holt didn’t always get along, it’s true. Sam was a softie, excitable, always wanted to help everybody out. He’d been pushing to open the school to wider selections of students for years now, and Iverson had stuck with the brass on saying no. There wasn’t room, and the budget didn’t extend far enough for new dorms and facilities for the kind of expansion Sam wanted. Plus, this school is supposed to be for the best of the best. If you widen the acceptance guidelines, there’d be more problems and more complaints and teachers making exceptions, and if nothing else, this incident shows that there cannot be subpar students making it out into space.

Iverson makes a face and takes a mouthful of his drink. Subpar. Ha. Nothing about those three was subpar. Sam was a good scientist, and a better commander. All his troops were loyal to the bone, and strove to do their best simply because he asked them to. It was maddening, sometimes. He was too relaxed with them, always joking and teasing, and letting them joke right back. But what the hell did that matter? He was a fine man. A fine commander.

He doesn’t remember a lot about the son – Matthew Holt – and that irks him. The kid was obviously a talent of some kind. Science track, like his father, but no ambition to chase leadership. But he’d been bright, that’s for sure. Looking at his transcripts and his logs, he was an academic to the bone. All kinds of extra credit where he didn’t need it, highest marks in almost every classroom… absolute crap at the physical stuff. He got better by the end of his Garrison time, which was all they could ask, really, but he should have had more before he went into space.

Still, there was no question that he had all the qualifications and more for the job they sent them out there to do. Biochemistry, geography, astronavigation, communications – the list just keeps going. His theories about alien life were far-fetched, but what are you going to do. He does remember the excitement in the kid’s face when they put him in that ship. He was trying so hard to hide it, but it was pretty plain to anyone who’s worked with kids for long enough. He wanted nothing better than to get out into space and start doing things. Whatever they were going to get back, it was going to be thorough to the point of insanity and include three different reports they didn’t actually ask for. That bright smile, so like his father’s, in his mother’s face. He deserved better than this.

And Shirogane. Damn. Top of his class, command track, best pilot the Garrison had seen in years, versed in bits and pieces of half a dozen fields just because he could, apparently. The fucking poster boy of the Garrison. Gone, just like that. Without a trace.

Iverson knocks back another cup of whiskey and stares morosely at his screen. They were a good team, and good men, all three of them. They were going to make a difference out there. Really get things moving. There had been funding and research from all over the world in that mission and now there’s nothing. Even if they got another ship in the air, it would still be another three months before they got to Kerberos, with no idea what they were going to find and if it was even safe. Given how long it takes those feeds to get back to Earth anyway… What’s the point?

He smiles without humor into his empty cup. Who is he kidding. He’s too much of a stubborn control freak to let this go. Now he’s just got a mission. Train these kids to be able to actually go after the Kerberos crew and bring them back. At least then they could have bodies to bury. Pouring one last glass, he stares over the rim at the three official photographs grinning back at him from his screen.

“Here’s to you, boys,” he says.


End file.
